聖書

Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 37:1 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it , that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD. BOOK 4 JERUSALEM AND SENNACHERIB 701 B.C. INTO this fourth book we put all the rest of the prophecies of the Book of Isaiah, that have to do with the prophet’s own time: chapters 1, 22 and 33, with the narrative in 36, 37. All these refer to the only Assyrian invasion of Judah and siege of Jerusalem: that undertaken by Sennacherib in 701. It is, however, right to remember once more, that many authorities maintain that there were two Assyrian invasions of Judah-one by Sargon in 711, the other by Sennacherib in 701-and that chapters 1 and 22 (as well as Isaiah 10:5-34 ) belong to the former of these. The theory is ingenious and tempting; but, in the silence of the Assyrian annals about any invasion of Judah by Sargon, it is impossible to adopt it. And although Chapters 1 and 22 differ very greatly in tone from chapter 33, yet to account for the difference it is not necessary to suppose two different invasions, with a considerable period between them. Virtually, as will appear in the course of our exposition, Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah was a double one. 1. The first time Sennacherib’s army invaded Judah they took all the fenced cities, and probably invested Jerusalem, but withdrew on payment of tribute and the surrender of the casus belli , the Assyrian Vassal Padi, whom the Ekronites had deposed and given over to the keeping of Hezekiah. To this invasion refer Isaiah 1:1-31 ; Isaiah 22:1-25 . and the first verse of 36.: "Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them." This verse is the same as 2 Kings 18:13 , to which, however, there is added in 2 Kings 18:14-16 an account of the tribute sent by Hezekiah to Sennacherib at Lachish, that is not included in the narrative in Isaiah. Compare 2 Chronicles 32:1 . 2. But scarcely had the tribute been paid when Sennacherib, himself advancing to meet Egypt, sent back upon Jerusalem a second army of investment, with which was the Rabshakeh; and this was the army that so mysteriously disappeared from the eyes of the besieged. To the treacherous return of the Assyrians and the sudden deliverance of Jerusalem from their grasp refer Isaiah 33:1-24 , Isaiah 36:2-22 , with the fuller and evidently original narrative in 2 Kings 18:17-19 . Compare 2 Chronicles 32:9-23 . To the history of this double attempt upon Jerusalem in 701-chapters 36 and 37 - there has been appended in 38 and 3 an account of Hezekiah’s illness and of an embassy to him from Babylon. These events probably happened some years before Sennacherib’s invasion. But it will be most convenient for us to take them in the order in which they stand in the canon. They wilt naturally lead us up to a question that it is necessary we should discuss before taking leave of Isaiah-whether this great prophet of the endurance of the kingdom of God upon earth had any gospel for the individual who dropped away from it into death. CHAPTER XXIII THIS IS THE VICTORY OUR FAITH 701 B.C. Isaiah 37:1-38 WITHIN the fortress of the faith there is only silence and embarrassment. We pass from the Rabshakeh, posing outside the walls of Zion, to Hezekiah, prostrate within them. We pass with the distracted councillors, by the walls crowded with moody and silent soldiers, many of them-if this be the meaning of the king’s command that they should not parley-only too ready to yield to the plausible infidel. We are astonished. Has faith nothing to say for herself? Have this people of so long Divine inspiration no habit of self-possession, no argument in answer to the irrelevant attacks of their enemy? Where are the traditions of Moses and Joshua, the songs of Deborah and David? Can men walk about Zion, and their very footsteps on her walls ring out no defiance? Hezekiah’s complaint reminds us that in this silence and distress we have no occasional perplexity of faith, but her perpetual burden. Faith is inarticulate because of her greatness. Faith is courageous and imaginative; but can she convert her confidence and visions into fact? Said Hezekiah, "This is a day of trouble, and rebuke and contumely, for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring them forth." These words are not a mere metaphor for anguish. They are the definition of a real miscarriage. In Isaiah’s contemporaries faith has at last engendered courage, zeal for God’s house, and strong assurance of victory; but she, that has proved fertile to conceive and carry these confidences, is powerless to bring them forth into real life, to transform them to actual fact. Faith, complains Hezekiah, is not the substance of things hoped for. At the moment when her subjective assurances ought to be realised as facts, she is powerless to bring them to the birth. It is a miscarriage we are always deploring. Wordsworth has said, "Through love, through hope, through faith’s transcendent dower, we feel that we are greater than we know." Yes, greater than we can articulate, greater than we can tell to men like the Rabshakeh, even though he talk the language of the Jews; and therefore, on the whole, it is best to be silent in face of his argument. But greater also, we sometimes fear, than we can realise to ourselves in actual character and victory. All life thrills with the pangs of inability to bring the children of faith to the birth of experience. The man who has lost his faith or who takes his faith easily, never knows, of course, this anguish of Hezekiah. But the more we have fed on the promises of the Bible, the more that the Spirit of God has engendered in our pure hearts assurances of justice and of peace, the more we shall sometimes tremble with the fear that in outward fact there is no life for these beautiful conceptions of the soul. Do we really believe in the Fatherhood of God-believe in it till it has changed us inwardly, and we carry a new sense of destiny, a new conscience of justice, a new disgust of sin, a new pity for pain? Then how full of the anguish of impotence must our souls feel when they consciously survey one day of common life about us, or when we honestly look back on a year of our own conduct! Does it not seem as if upon one or two hideous streets in some centre of our civilisation all Christianity, with its eighteen hundred years of promise and impetus, had gone to wreck? Is God only for the imagination of man? Is there no God outwardly to control and grant victory? Is He only a Voice, and not the Creator? Is Christ only a Prophet, and not the King? And then over these disappointments there faces us all the great miscarriage itself-black, inevitable death. Hezekiah cried from despair that the Divine assurance of the permanance of God’s people in the world was about to be wrecked on fact. But often by a death-bed we utter the same lament about the individual’s immortality. There is everything to prove a future life except the fact of it within human experience. This life is big with hopes, instincts, convictions of immortality: and yet where within our sight have these ever passed to the birth of fact? Death is a great miscarriage. "The children have come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring them forth." And yet within the horizon of this life at least-the latter part of the difficulty we postpone to another chapter-"faith is the substance of things hoped for," as Isaiah did now most brilliantly prove. For the miracle of Jerusalem’s deliverance, to which the narrative proceeds, was not that by faith the prophet foretold it, but that by faith he did actually himself succeed in bringing it to pass. The miracle, we say, was not that Isaiah made accurate prediction of the city’s speedy relief from the Assyrian, but far more that upon his solitary steadfastness, without aid of battle, he did carry her disheartened citizens through this crisis of temptation, and kept them, though silent, to their walls till the futile Assyrian drifted away. The prediction, indeed, was not, although its terms appear exact, so very marvellous for a prophet to make, who had Isaiah’s religious conviction that Jerusalem must survive and Isaiah’s practical acquaintance with the politics of the day. "Behold, I am setting in him a spirit; and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return into his own land." We may recall the parallel case of Charlemagne in his campaign against the Moors in Spain, from which he was suddenly and unreasonably hastened north on a disastrous retreat by news of the revolt of the Saxons. In the vast Assyrian territories rebellions were constantly occurring, that demanded the swift appearance of the king himself; and God’s spirit, to whose inspiration Isaiah traced all political perception, suggested to him the possibility of one of these. In the end, the Bible story implies that it was not a rumour from some far-away quarter so much as a disaster here in Syria, which compelled Sennacherib’s "retreat from Moscow." But it is possible that both causes were at work, and that as Napoleon offered the receipt of news from Paris as his reason for hurriedly abandoning the unfortunate Spanish campaign of 1808, so Sennacherib made the rumour of some news from his capital or the north the occasion for turning his troops from a theatre of war, where they had not met with unequivocal success, and had at last been half destroyed by the plague. Isaiah’s further prediction of Sennacherib’s death must also be taken in a general sense, for it was not till twenty years later that the Assyrian tyrant met this violent end! "I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land." But do not let us waste our attention on the altogether minor point of the prediction of Jerusalem’s deliverance, when the great wonder, of which the prediction is but an episode, lies lengthened and manifest before us-that Isaiah, when all the defenders of Jerusalem were distracted and her king prostrate, did by the single steadfastness of his spirit sustain her inviolate, and procure for her people a safe and glorious future. The baffled Rabshakeh returned to his master, whom he found at Libnah, "for he had heard that he had broken up from Lachish." Sennacherib, the narrative would seem to imply, did not trouble himself further about Jerusalem till he learned that Tirhakah, the Ethiopian ruler of Egypt, was marching to meet him with probably a stronger force than that which Sennacherib had defeated at Eltekeh. Then, feeling the danger of leaving so strong a fortress as Jerusalem in his rear, Sennacherib sent to Hezekiah one more demand for surrender. Hezekiah spread his enemy’s letter before the Lord. His prayer that follows is remarkable for two features, which enable us to see how pure and elevated a monotheism God’s Spirit had at last developed from the national faith of Israel. The Being whom the king now seeks he addresses by the familiar name-Jehovah of hosts, God of Israel, and describes by the physical figure-"who art enthroned upon the cherubim." But he conceives of this God with the utmost loftiness and purity, ascribing to Him not only sovereignty and creatorship, but absolute singularity of Godhead. We have but to compare Hezekiah’s prayer with the utterances of his predecessor Ahaz, to whom many gods were real, and none absolutely sovereign, or with the utterances of Israelites far purer than Ahaz, to whom the gods of the nations, though inferior to Jehovah, were yet real existences, in order to mark the spiritual advance made by Israel under Isaiah. It is a tribute to the prophet’s force, which speaks volumes, when the deputation from Hezekiah talk to him of thy God ( Isaiah 37:4 ). For Isaiah by his ministry had made Israel’s God to be new in Israel’s eyes. Hezekiah’s lofty prayer drew forth through the prophet an answer from Jehovah ( Isaiah 37:21-32 ). This is one of the most brilliant of Isaiah’s oracles. It is full of much with which we are now familiar: the triumph of the inviolable fortress "the virgin daughter of Zion," and her scorn of the arrogant foe: the prophet’s appreciation of Asshur’s power and impetus, which only heightens his conviction that Asshur is but an instrument in the hated of God; the old figure of the enemy’s sudden check as of a wild animal by hook and bridle; his inevitable retreat to the north. But these familiar ideas are flung off with a terseness and vivacity which bear out the opinion that here we have a prophecy of Isaiah, not revised, and elaborated for subsequent publication, like the rest of his book, but in its original form, struck quickly forth to meet the city’s sudden and urgent prayer. The new feature of this prophecy is the sign added to it ( Isaiah 37:30 ). This sign reminds us of that which in opposite terms described to Ahaz the devastation of Judah by the approaching Assyrians (chapter 7). The wave of Assyrian war is about to roll away again, and Judah to resume her neglected agriculture, but not quite immediately. During this year of 701 it has been impossible, with the Assyrians in the land, to sow the seed, and the Jews have been dependent on the precarious crop of what had fallen from the harvest of the previous year and sown itself - saphiah , or aftergrowth. Next year, it being now too late to sow for next year’s harvest, they must be content with the shahis - "wild corn, that which springs of itself: But the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof." Perhaps we ought not to interpret these numbers literally. The use of three gives the statement a formal and general aspect, as if the prophet only meant, It may be not quite at once that we get rid of the Assyrians; but when they do go, then they go for good, and you may till your land again without fear of their return. Then rings out the old promise, so soon now to be accomplished, about "the escaped" and "the remnant"; and the great pledge of the promise is once more repeated: "The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform this." With this exclamation, as in Isaiah 9:7 , the prophecy reaches a natural conclusion; and Isaiah 37:33-35 may have been uttered by Isaiah a little later, when he was quite sure that the Assyrian would not even attempt to repeat his abandoned blockade of Jerusalem. At last in a single night the deliverance miraculously came. It is implied by the scattered accounts of those days of salvation, that an Assyrian corps continued to sit before Jerusalem even after the Rabshakeh had returned to the headquarters of Sennacherib. The thirty-third of Isaiah, as well as those Psalms which celebrate the Assyrian’s disappearance from Judah, describe it as having taken place from under the walls of Jerusalem and the astonished eyes of her guardians. It was not, however, upon this force-perhaps little more than a brigade of observation { Isaiah 33:18 } -that the calamity fell which drove Sennacherib so suddenly from Syria. "And there went forth (that night, adds the book of Kings) the angel of Jehovah; and he smote in the camp of Assyria one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when" the camp arose "in the morning, behold all of them were corpses, dead men. And Sennacherib, King of Assyria, broke up, and returned and dwelt in Nineveh." Had this pestilence dispersed the camp that lay before Jerusalem, and left beneath the walls so considerable a number of corpses, the exclamations of surprise at the sudden disappearance of Assyria, which occur in Isaiah 33:1-24 and in Psalm 48:1-14 ; Psalm 76:1-12 , could hardly have failed to betray the fact. But these simply speak of vague trouble coming "upon them that were assembled about Zion," and of their swift decampment. The trouble was the news of the calamity, whose victims were the main body of the Assyrian army, who had been making for the borders of Egypt, but were now scattered northwards like chaff. For details of this disaster we look in vain, of course, to the Assyrian annals, which only record Sennacherib’s abrupt return to Nineveh. But it is remarkable that the histories of both of his chief rivals in this campaign, Judah and Egypt, should contain independent reminiscences of so sudden and miraculous a disaster to his host. From Egyptian sources there has come down through Herodotus (2:14), a story that a king of Egypt, being deserted by the military caste, when "Sennacherib King of the Arabs and Assyrians" invaded his country, entered his sanctuary and appealed with weeping to his god; that the god appeared and cheered him; that he raised an army of artisans and marched to meet Sennacherib in Pelusium; that by night a multitude of field-mice ate up the quivers, bowstrings, and shield-straps of the Assyrians; and that, as these fled on the morrow, very many of them fell. A stone statue of the king, adds Herodotus, stood in the temple of Hephaestus, having a mouse in the hand. Now, since the mouse was a symbol of sudden destruction, and even of the plague, this story of Herodotus seems to be merely a picturesque form of a tradition that pestilence broke out in the Assyrian camp. The parallel with the Bible narrative is close. In both accounts it is a prayer of the king that prevails. In both the Deity sends His agent-in the grotesque Egyptian an army of mice, in the sublime Jewish His angel. In both the effects are sudden, happening in a single night. From the Assyrian side we have this corroboration: that Sennacherib did abruptly return to Nineveh without taking Jerusalem or meeting with Tirhakah, and that, though he reigned for twenty years more, he never again made a Syrian campaign. Sennacherib’s convenient story of his return may be compared to the ambiguous account which Caesar gives of his first withdrawal from Britain, laying emphasis on the submission of the tribes as his reason for a swift return to France-a return which was rather due to the destruction of his fleet by storm and the consequent uneasiness of his army. Or, as we have already said, Sennacherib’s account may be compared to Napoleon’s professed reason for his sudden abandonment of his Spanish campaign and his quick return to Paris in 1808. The neighbourhood in which the Assyrian army suffered this great disaster was notorious in antiquity for its power of pestilence. Making every allowance for the untutored imagination of the ancients, we must admit the Serbonian bog, between Syria and Egypt, to have been a place terrible for filth and miasma. The noxious vapours travelled far; but the plagues, with which this swamp several times desolated the world, were first engendered among the diseased and demoralised populations, whose villages festered upon its margin. A Persian army was decimated here in the middle of the fourth century before Christ. "The fatal disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his successors first appeared in the neighbourhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile." To the north of the bog the Crusaders also suffered from the infection. It is, therefore, very probable that the moral terror of this notorious neighbourhood, as well as its malaria, acting upon an exhausted and disappointed army in a devastated land, was the secondary cause in the great disaster, by which the Almighty humbled the arrogance of Asshur. The swiftness, with which Sennacherib’s retreat is said to have begun, has been equalled by the turning-points of other historical campaigns. Alexander the Great’s decision to withdraw from India was, after victories as many as Sennacherib’s, made in three days. Attila vanished out of Italy as suddenly as Sennacherib, and from a motive less evident. In the famous War of the Fosse the Meccan army broke off from their siege of Mohammed in a single stormy night. Napoleon’s career went back upon itself with just as sharp a bend no less than thrice-in 1799, on Sennacherib’s own ground in Syria; in 1808, in Spain; and in 1812, when he turned from Moscow upon "one memorable night of frost, in which twenty thousand horses perished, and the strength of the French army was utterly broken." The amount of the Assyrian loss is enormous, and implies of course a much higher figure for the army which was vast enough to suffer it; but here are some instances for comparison. In the early German invasions of Italy whole armies and camps were sweet away by the pestilential climate. The losses of the First Crusade were over three hundred thousand. The soldiers of the Third Crusade, upon the scene of Sennacherib’s war, were reckoned at more than half a million, and their losses by disease alone at over one hundred thousand. The Grand Army of Napoleon entered Russia two hundred and fifty thousand, but came out, having suffered no decisive defeat, only twelve thousand; on the retreat from Moscow alone ninety thousand perished. What we are concerned with, however, is neither the immediate occasion nor the exact amount of Sennacherib’s loss, but the bare fact, so certainly established, that, having devastated Judah to the very walls of Jerusalem, the Assyrian was compelled by some calamity apart from human war to withdraw before the sacred city itself was taken. For this was the essential part of Isaiah’s prediction; upon this he had staked the credit of the pure monotheism, whose prophet he was to the world. If we keep before us these two simple certainties about the great Deliverance: first, that it had been foretold by Jehovah’s word, and second, that it had been now achieved, despite all human probability, by Jehovah’s own arm, we shall understand the enormous spiritual impression which it left upon Israel. The religion of the one supreme God, supreme in might because supreme in righteousness, received a most emphatic historical vindication, a signal and glorious triumph. Well might Isaiah exclaim, on the morning of the night during which that Assyrian host had drifted away from Jerusalem, "Jehovah is our Judge; Jehovah is our Lawgiver; Jehovah is our King: He saveth us." No other god for the present had any chance in Judah. Idolatry was discredited, not by the political victory of a puritan faction, not even by the distinctive genius or valour of a nation, but by an evident act of Providence, to which no human aid had been contributory. It was nothing less than the baptism of Israel in spiritual religion, the grace of which was never wholly undone. Nevertheless, the story of Jehovah’s triumph cannot be justly recounted without including the reaction which followed upon it within the same generation. Before twenty years had passed from the day, on which Jerusalem, with the forty-sixth Psalm on her lips, sought with all her heart the God of Isaiah, she relapsed into an idolatry that wore only this sign of the uncompromising puritanism it had displaced: that it was gloomy, and filled with a sense of sin unknown to Israel’s idolatries previous to the age of Isaiah. The change would be almost incomprehensible to us, who have realised the spiritual effects of Sennacherib’s disappearance, if we had not within our own history a somewhat analogous experience. Puritanism was as gloriously accredited by event, and seemed to be as generally accepted by England under Cromwell, as faith in the spiritual religion of Isaiah was vindicated by the deliverance of Jerusalem and the peace of Judah under Hezekiah. But swiftly as the ruling temper in England changed after Cromwell’s death, and Puritanism was laid under the ban, and persecution and licentiousness broke out, so quickly when Hezekiah died did Manasseh his son-no change of dynasty here-"do evil in the sight of Jehovah, and make Judah to sin, building again the high places and rearing up altars for Baal and altars in the house of Jehovah, whereof Jehovah had said, In Jerusalem will I put My name." Idolatry was never so rampant in Judah. "Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood, till he filled Jerusalem from one end to another." It is in this carnage that tradition has placed the death of Isaiah. He, who had been Judah’s best counsellor through five reigns, on whom the whole nation had gathered in the day of her distress, and by whose faith her long-hoped-for salvation had at last become substantive, was violently put to death by the son of Hezekiah. It is said that he was sawn asunder. { Hebrews 11:1-40 } The parallel, which we are pursuing, does not, however, close here. "As soon," says an English historian, "as the wild orgy of the Restoration was over, men began to see that nothing that was really worthy in the work of Puritanism bad been undone. The whole history of English progress since the Restoration, on its moral and spiritual sides, has been the history of Puritanism." For the principles of Isaiah and their victory we may make a claim as much larger than this claim, as Israel’s influence on the world has been greater than England’s. Israel never wholly lost the grace of the baptism wherewith she was baptised in 701. Even in her history there was no event in which the unaided interposition of God was more conspicuous. It is from an appreciation of the meaning of such a Providence that Israel derives her character-that character which marks her off so distinctively from her great rival in the education of the human race, and endows her ministry with its peculiar value to the world. If we are asked for the characteristics of the Hellenic genius, we point to the august temples and images of beauty in which the wealth and art of man have evolved in human features most glorious suggestions of divinity, or we point to Thermopylae, where human valour and devotion seem grander even in unavailing sacrifice than the almighty Fate that renders them the prey of the barbarian. In Greece the human is greater than the divine. But if we are asked to define the spirit of Israel, we remember the worship which Isaiah has enjoined in his opening chapter, a worship that dispenses even with the temple and with sacrifice, but, from the first strivings of conscience to the most certain enjoyment of peace, ascribes all man’s experience to the word of God. In contrast with Thermopylae, we recall Jerusalem’s Deliverance, effected apart from human war by the direct stroke of Heaven. In Judah man is great simply as he rests on God. The rocks of Thermopylae, how imperishably beautiful do they shine to latest ages with the comradeship, the valour, the sacrificial blood of human heroes! It is another beauty which Isaiah saw upon the bare, dry rocks of Zion, and which has drawn to them the admiration of the world. "There," he said, "Jehovah is glory for us, a place of broad rivers and streams." "In returning and rest all ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence is your strength." How divine Isaiah’s message is, may be proved by the length of time mankind is taking to learn it. The remarkable thing is, that he staked so lofty a principle, and the pure religion of which it was the temper, upon a political result, that he staked them upon, and vindicated them by a purely local and material success-the relief of Jerusalem from the infidel. Centuries passed, and Christ came. He did not-for even He could not-preach a more spiritual religion than that which He had committed to His greatest forerunner, but He released this religion, and the temper of faith which Isaiah had so divinely expressed, from the local associations and merely national victories, with which even Isaiah had been forced to identify them. The destruction of Jerusalem by the heathen formed a large part of Christ’s prediction of the immediate future; and He comforted the remnant of faith with these words, to some of which Isaiah’s lips had first given their meaning: "Ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." Again centuries passed-no less than eighteen from Isaiah-and we find Christendom, though Christ had come between, returning to Isaiah’s superseded problem, and, while reviving its material conditions, unable to apply to them the prophet’s spiritual temper. The Christianity of the Crusades fell back upon Isaiah’s position without his spirit. Like him, it staked the credit of religion upon the relief of the holy city from the grasp of the infidel; but, in ghastly contrast to that pure faith and serene confidence with which a single Jew maintained the inviolateness of Mount Zion in the face of Assyria, with what pride and fraud, with what blood and cruelty, with what impious invention of miracle and parody of Divine testimony, did countless armies of Christendom, excited by their most fervent prophets and blessed by their high-priest, attempt in vain the recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracen! The Crusades are a gigantic proof of how easy it is to adopt the external forms of heroic ages, how difficult to repeat their inward temper. We could not have more impressive witness borne to the fact that humanity-though obedient to the orthodox Church, though led by the strongest spirits of the age, though hallowed by the presence of its greatest saints, though enduring all trials, though exhibiting an unrivalled power of self-sacrifice and enthusiasm, though beautified by courtesy and chivalry, and though doing and suffering all for Christ’s sake-may yet fail to understand the old precept that "in returning and rest men are saved, in quietness and in confidence is their strength." Nothing could more emphatically prove the loftiness of Isaiah’s teaching than this failure of Christendom even to come within sight of it. Have we learned this lesson yet? O God of Israel, God of Isaiah, in returning to whom and resting upon whom alone we are saved, purge us of self and of the pride of life, of the fever and the falsehood they breed. Teach us that in quietness and in confidence is our strength. Help us to be still and know that Thou art God. CHAPTER XXVI HAD ISAIAH A GOSPEL FOR THE INDIVIDUAL? THE two narratives, in which Isaiah’s career culminates-that of the Deliverance of Jerusalem { Isaiah 36:1-22 ; Isaiah 37:1-38 } and that of the Recovery of Hezekiah { Isaiah 38:1-22 ; Isaiah 39:1-8 }-cannot fail, coming together as they do, to suggest to thoughtful readers a striking contrast between Isaiah’s treatment of the community and his treatment of the individual, between his treatment of the Church and his treatment of single members. For in the first of these narratives we are told how an illimitable future, elsewhere so gloriously described by the prophet, was secured for the Church upon earth; but the whole result of the second is the gain for a representative member of the Church of a respite of fifteen years. Nothing, as we have seen, is promised to the dying Hezekiah of a future life; no scintilla of the light of eternity sparkles either in Isaiah’s promise or in Hezekiah’s prayer. The net result of the incident is a reprieve of fifteen years: fifteen years of a character strengthened, indeed, by having met with death, but, it would sadly seem, only in order to become again the prey of the vanities of this world (chapter 39). So meagre a result for the individual stands strangely out against the perpetual glory and peace assured to the community. And it suggests this question: Had Isaiah any real gospel for the individual? If so, what was it? First of all, we must remember that God in His providence seldom gives to one prophet or generation more than a single main problem for solution. In Isaiah’s day undoubtedly the most urgent problem-and Divine problems are ever practical, not philosophical-was the continuance of the Church upon earth. It had really got to be a matter of doubt whether a body of people possessing the knowledge of the true God, and able to transfuse and transmit it, could possibly survive among the political convulsions of the world, and in consequence of its own sin. Isaiah’s problem was the reformation and survival of the Church. In accordance with this, we notice how many of his terms are collective, and how he almost never addresses the individual. It is the people, upon whom he calls-"the nation," "Israel," "the house of Jacob My vineyard," "the men of Judah His pleasant plantation." To these we may add the apostrophes to the city of Jerusalem, under many personifications: "Ariel, Ariel," "inhabitress of Zion," "daughter of Zion." When Isaiah denounces sin, the sinner is either the whole community or a class in the community, very seldom an individual, though there are some instances of the latter, as Ahaz and Shebna. It is "This people hath rejected," or "

Hezekiah... rent his clothes... and went into the house of the Lord. Isaiah 37:1 The distress, of Hezekiah J. Parker, D. D. Hezekiah was probably weak in body, and therefore had lost true courage of soul. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Peril should drive the soul to God The best way to baffle the malicious designs of our enemies against us is to be driven by them to God and to our duty, and so to fetch meat out of the eater. Rabshakeh intended to frighten Hezekiah from the Lord, but it proves that he frightens him to the Lord. The wind, instead of forcing the traveller's coat from him, makes him wrap it closer about him. ( M. Henry . ) This day is a day of trouble. Isaiah 37:3 Hezekiah's day of trouble W. Alnwick. Ahaz the father and immediate predecessor of Hezekiah on the throne of Judah, engaged himself, and virtually his successors, to pay tribute to the kings of Assyria. Such a state of vassalage Hezekiah no doubt rightly though hazardously declined to continue, and this is what is meant when it is said of him that "he rebelled gains the king of Assyria and served him not" ( 2 Kings 18:7 ). Any such refusal on the part of Hezekiah to acknowledge the despotic king of Assyria as his lordparamount we may be sure would not be allowed to pass unchallenged, and hence Sennacherib's invasion of the kingdom of Judah in order to compel submission to what the king of Judah objected to and declined to do. This is what constituted Hezekiah's day of trouble. ( W. Alnwick. ) Days of trouble W. Alnwick. 1. Hezekiah but represents what has been the general experience of man, for there has probably never lived a man on the face of the earth whose lot it has not been to have some days of trouble and annoyance. 2. If we cannot entertain a reasonable hope of any such thing as immunity from trouble, we can, however, endeavour to live and act so that our troubles may not be more than they need to be. It cannot be doubted that many bring much trouble on themselves, and subject themselves to many heart-aches and heart burns, which they ought never to have known, and probably would not have experienced had a different course of conduct been pursued, a course, perhaps, pointed out to them by those gifted with greater wisdom, prudence, and foresight than they themselves were possessed of, but which by their obstinacy of will and unjustifiable determination to take their own way, they were led to reject. 3. We are not, of course, to think that because many and great troubles fall to the-lot of a man, he has necessarily acted foolishly, acted in opposition to any law of God, either natural, religious, or spiritual. This was just the grievous mistake Job's friends fell into. 4. It is only in heaven that trouble will be a thing unknown, and where all tears will for ever be wiped away. 5. We cannot but see the importance of being well prepared for days of trouble before we are made sensible of their presence with us. If we are wise enough to prepare ourselves for them their approach will be no surprise to us, and we shall be the better able to battle with them, and to turn that which is an evil in itself into a blessing, and so much help to us in our journey heavenward. 6. There can be no doubt that troubles are often sent by a wise and gracious providence for this very purpose. 7. It now only remains for me to make a few further remarks on how to deal with days of trouble when from being matters of prospect or future contingents, they have become translated into actual and stern facts. In dealing with such days we shall find much instruction and guidance afforded us by the example of Hezekiah in dealing with his day of trouble. As soon as Hezekiah became acquainted with the invasion of Sennacherib, he went into the house of the Lord, the sure resort of God's people in the time of distress, there in prayer to lay both his trouble and its cause before God, and at the same time he sent Eliakim and Shebna unto the prophet Isaiah to desire that man of God to lift up his prayer in behalf of the remnant that was left. We are informed what was the blessed result of this union of prayer on the part of the king and the prophet. The day of trouble was removed, and the sun, which one day was shrouded in darkness, the next, shone forth bright and clear, every cloud being swept from the sky. The course taken by the king of Judah in his day of trouble and distress must commend itself to all who are found in similar circumstances by its marvellous success. It is a fact, in spite of the sneering scepticism of some people, that prayer is a really great power, and that as a means for the attainment of ends consistent with and approved by infinite wisdom and goodness, it will succeed when other means, such as men in their ignorance sometimes elect to employ as the best and fittest, utterly fail to reach the end aimed at. ( W. Alnwick. ) Hours when prophets have influence J. Parker, D. D. In the midst of his distress Hezekiah sent "unto Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz." So far Hezekiah was right. He might have gone himself directly by an act of faith to the living God, but he had regard to the constitution of Israel, and he availed himself of the ordinances and institutes appointed of Heaven. Hezekiah made through Eliakim a pathetic speech to Isaiah — "This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy." There are hours when prophets come to the enjoyment of their fullest influence. Isaiah had been despised and derided, but now his hour has come, and he stands up as the one hope of Judah. The question was, What can you, Isaiah, do to extract Israel from all the peril which now presses upon the people of God? In the sixth verse we see how nobly the attitude of Isaiah contrasts with the attitude of Hezekiah. Instead of the word of inspiration proceeding from the, king it issued from the prophet. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) A dangerous crisis Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. "The children are come to the birth," &c. Obviously a proverbial expression for a crisis which becomes dangerous through lack of strength to meet it ( Isaiah 66:9 ; Hosea 13:13 ). ( Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. ) Lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left. Isaiah 37:4 Efficacious prayer B. Beddome, M. A. I. THE PERSON WHO WAS TO ENGAGE IN THE WORK OF INTERCESSION Was one of great eminence in the Church and commonwealth, a great and good man, a prophet of the Lord, and one who was indulged with peculiar nearness to Him. Persons of eminent piety will not be contented with ordinary applications to the throne of grace; they will seek till they find, and wrestle till they prevail. This was a day of trouble, as Hezekiah calls it; and. therefore, it ought to be a day of prayer. Intercession is the duty of all saints. But herein ministers should take the lead. They are the Church's watchmen, and God's remembrancers. Zedekiah, who at one time cast Jeremiah the prophet into a dungeon, at another time desired an interest in his supplications, and sent messengers to him, saying, "Pray now unto the Lord our God for us." And God often spares the wicked for the sake of the righteous, and in answer to their requests, even as the intercession of Abraham was accepted for the inhabitants of Sodom. II. THOSE FOR WHOM THE PROPHET WAS REQUESTED TO PRAY were "the remnant that was left"; a certain number known unto God, and who remained after the rest were scattered or destroyed. This should teach us, that though in our prayers we should be forgetful of none, yet we are to be particularly mindful of our fellow-Christians, especially when in a state of adversity. It becomes us also to be attentive to public and national calamities, as well as to those which are personal and private, and to spread them before the Lord in prayer and supplication. III. There is something observable as to THE MANNER IN WHICH THE PROPHET'S INTERCESSION IS REQUESTED. "Lift up thy prayer." This expressive form of speech may teach us to remember — 1. That the glorious object of prayer is infinitely exalted. 2. The low and mean condition of the worshipper. 3. The secrecy of prayer, according to our Lord's direction, "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet," &c. Lifting up a prayer may denote the same thing as David expresses by the lifting up of the soul to God, in mental and silent ejaculation. 4. The importunity and ardour of prayer. In lifting up our prayer to God, our affections should rise high, though our voice may be low and feeble. 5. The spirituality and heavenly-mindedness of the person engaged. 6. Boldness and confidence, accompanied with the hope of being heard and answered. 7. The proper end of prayer, which is not to draw the Divine Being near to us, but ourselves to Him. ( B. Beddome, M. A. ) Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee. Isaiah 37:10 A piece of satanic advice A. G. Brown. I. LET US WEIGH THIS PIECE OF SATANIC ADVICE. It is a very dangerous temptation for three reasons. 1. Because it appeals to the natural pride of the heart. There is a universal instinct which makes a man abhor the idea of being deceived. There is something in the very idea which rouses all the pride that lies latent in every heart. 2. There is no disguising the fact that if God did deceive us we are in a hopeless plight, and therefore there is force in the temptation. 3. The methods of God's government being beyond our comprehension, sometimes appear to incline towards the tempter's suggestion, — from appearances one might say, "God is going to leave us in the lurch." II. LET US TURN ROUND AND TEAR THE ADVICE UP. 1. We may tear it up because it comes too late. If God be a deceiver we are already so thoroughly deceived, and have been so for years, that it is rather late in the day to come and advise us not to be. 2. We may tear it up, because if God deceive us we may be quite certain that there is nobody else that would not. From all we know of our God, His holiness, His righteousness, and His faithfulness, if He can deceive us, then are we quite certain that there are none to be trusted 3. There is not one atom of evidence to support the libel. Search the world through, and see if you can find a man who will deliberately say, "I have tried God, I have trusted Him, and He has deceived me." 4. There is overwhelming evidence to refute it. Never yet did man trust his God and be put to shame. Heaven and earth and hell declare that Jehovah never hath deceived and never can deceive. ( A. G. Brown. ) Sennacherib versus Jehovah B. Blake, B. D. Never before in his experience had Sennacherib heard of a God who could resist his progress; he believed in the almighty power of Asshur. ( B. Blake, B. D. ) And Hezekiah received the letter... and read it... and spread it before the Lord. Isaiah 37:14-38 Hezekiah's prayer and deliverance G. F. Pentecost, D. D. In the struggles, defeats, and final triumph of the ancient people of God in their conflicts with the surrounding nations, we have a key to the purposes of God in respect to the kingdom of Christ and the kingdoms of this world; a key to the interpretation of the principles and powers underlying the conflict between the people of God and the unbelievers of this world. God's hand is in this earth's history; His eye is upon all men and His ear open to their ,counsels; at the proper time and in the proper place He will frustrate all the combinations of evil and bring to pass all His purposes of righteousness. It is not by might nor by power that believers triumph over their spiritual enemies or win their victories, but by the interposition of God s almighty arm. The preceding chapter is so closely connected with that from which our present study is taken, that the two must be read together. Jerusalem was under siege, or at least was threatened with siege and capture by the Assyrian king. In spite of all Hezekiah's efforts to buy a peace for himself and his kingdom, the greedy, haughty, and most powerful king was determined to be satisfied with nothing short of entire and full possession of Jerusalem itself. (For further historical setting let the reader consult 2 Kings 18:13 — 19.; 2 Chronicles 32:1-21 .) The first peremptory message, with the proud and blasphemous boasts of Sennacherib, threw Hezekiah into great distress of mind and profound dismay. He appealed to the prophet Isaiah, who encouraged him to keep silence and trust in God (vers. 1-7). A sudden rumour of an army marching in his rear caused a diversion of the Assyrian's purpose, but meantime he sent another haughty message to Hezekiah, warning him that he was powerless to resist, and intimating his return presently to capture the city This was a written message (ver. 14), and it again disturbed Hezekiah, but apparently his faith in God was not shaken, and so he resorted again to the temple and spread the whole matter out before the Lord and sought help and deliverance. I. THE PRAYER OF HEZEKIAH. Hezekiah was a righteous, though not a perfect man. He was habituated to prayer. 1. The place and attitude of prayer. "Hezekiah went up unto the house of the Lord." This was the proper standing-ground on which to make petitions. God had promised to meet His people there, and hear and answer their prayers ( 2 Chronicles 7:14, 15 ). We have not now any particular place in which to pray, but we have a Name which to plead — the name of Jesus, and "whatsoever we ask in His name," other conditions being also fulfilled, "shall be done unto us." Jesus is the true "meeting-place" between God and His people; He is the true ground on which prayer is to be made. By Him we have access to God ( Ephesians 2:14 ). Then Hezekiah did another thing. He took the haughty and insolent letter of Rabshakeh and "spread it before the Lord." So should we take God into our confidence, and "in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make our request known unto God" ( Philippians 4:6 ). We too often plan our own deliverance or our own work and then ask God to ratify it, whereas the first thing to do is to spread the matter at once fully before God, reverently submitting to His plan and will, seeking in His wisdom the right thing to do. 2. The address. Here was a reverent remembrance of His majesty and a silent appeal to His power, in which also Hezekiah renewed his own confession of faith: "O Lord of hosts, God of Israel." Israel was in trouble, and God was Israel's God, not a mere titular deity, but the great God of hosts. This is a familiar designation of God and Jehovah, and refers to His universal sovereignty and power. "That dwellest between the cherubim." This is a reference to the fact that God had been pleased to make His dwelling-place on the mercy-seat between those mysterious figures called the cherubim, from which place He was always graciously inclined towards His people. If the cherubim symbolise the incarnation (of which I, at least, have no doubt), then the reference to God's position between them, or, as we would now say, "God in Christ," is very significant. David made a similar appeal to now say, "God on behalf of Israeal: "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel; Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth. Stir up Thy strength and come and save us" ( Psalm 80:1, 2 ). "Thou art the God, Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth." The views of Sennacherib were that each nation and kingdom had their own gods (Isaiah 36:18-20), but Hezekiah ascribes to God not only aloneness in His being, but oneness, and universal sovereignty over all the kingdoms of the earth. He therefore could interfere in the plans of the Assyrian king for the purpose of frustrating them, as well as come to the defence of His own peculiar people; besides, there was a refutation and repudiation of the boasted idol gods who had been compared to Him. "Thou hast made heaven and earth." It is a favourite thought of Isaiah and the old prophets, and indeed all the Jews who were instructed in the knowledge of God, to couple His redemptive with His creative power. Thus did Hezekiah throw himself on all the great attributes of God before he began his petition. 3. The supplication. "Incline Thine ear and hear, open Thine eyes and see." Shall all the doings of this vain and proud braggart go past without Thine observation? Shall all his scandalous words in which he has openly derogated Thee pass by Thine hearing? True prayer has always reference to the glory of God, however much our own personal desires and needs may be involved in the things asked for. "Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee" (ver. 10). "Lord, refute and roll back that scandalous speech and reproach." 4. Confession. Hezekiah was not unmindful of the difficulties that opposed themselves to him, of the dangers that confronted him, nor of the truth of the statements of the letter concerning the power of Sennacherib. "Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries, and have cast their gods into the fire." For two centuries they had had a steady career of conquest. There was no denying this; and many of the countries and kingdoms that had succumbed to their power were much stronger than that of Hezekiah at this time. There was therefore some show of truth in what they said ( 2 Kings 15:19, 20, 29 ; 2 Kings 16:9 ; 2 Kings 17:5, 6 ; Isaiah 20:1 ). Faith does not ignore difficulties nor close its eyes to precedents in which the enemy has triumphed, but then it is bold in the belief that God is able; and that what may seem to be failure is due to other causes than the lack of power or covenant faithfulness on the part of God. 5. The faith in which the prayer was made. Hezekiah having admitted the prowess of the great enemy, proceeds to say to the Lord that the triumph of Sennacherib over other nations and their gods proves nothing in this case, from the fact that the gods of the nations were no gods at all, but mere idols of wood and stone, the work of men's hands. Hezekiah in thus declaring his faith in God above all idols, seems also to call on God to make this truth apparent to the Assyrians. Here his jealousy for God momentarily rises above his anxiety for Jerusalem. 6. The petition. "Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand." This is the simple, brief, and comprehensive petition. Just save us. We do not dictate the means, we do not dictate the nature of the salvation. Sometimes the most effective prayers are the shortest. "God be merciful to me, a sinner," was a very brief prayer. So was "Lord save me," but both were heard and answered; so was Hezekiah's. 7. The argument. Hezekiah's argument is all gathered up into this consummation, "that the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art Jehovah, even Thou only." True believers long always that others may know their God. It is right for us to desire that our own may know God, and even our friends, but it is the part of the true Christian spirit to desire that even our enemies might know God, to long to see even all the nations of the earth brought to a saving knowledge of the truth. This was a true missionary prayer of Hezekiah. Sometimes the knowledge of God can only be spread by the overthrow of some great political power, or the removing of some gigantic enemy, such as Assyria and Sennacherib. It proved to be so in this case. II. THE DELIVERANCE. After his prayer (we do not know how long after) Isaiah, who seems to have been supernaturally informed of the prayer, and in like manner put in possession of Jehovah's reply, "sent word to Hezekiah," that inasmuch as he had submitted the matter concerning Sennacherib to God for help and deliverance, his request would be heard and answered. The following verses give an account of the answer. 1. The promise. The first part of this promise is to the effect that the "virgin daughter of Zion hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee" (vers. 22, 23). This seems to be not only an answer to Rabshakeh for his vain and blasphemous boasting, but also an assurance to Hezekiah. The daughter of Zion, like a virgin maid, was in herself weak and helpless; nevertheless she held all the threatening of the Assyrian in scorn and contempt, and would shake her head in derision at him, either in defiance of his onset or following him with mockery in his retreat from the city. Then follows a message to the Assyrian direct, in which God rebukes him for his boastful blasphemies, and reminds him of how in the ages past God has overthrown and destroyed the nations which had presumed to oppose themselves to Jehovah. Then he is told that God's eye has been upon him, and that now Jehovah was about to "put a hook in his nose" and lead him away out of the country in contempt, not even giving him the glory of a battle. Then follows another promise to the remnant of Judah that they should again "take root downward and bear fruit upward" (vers. 24-32). Then comes again God's "Therefore," concerning the Assyrian.(1) "He shall not come into the city," not even near enough to shoot the first preliminary arrow at it, much less near enough to use shields, or even raise an embankment against it for the purpose of a siege. Sennacherib's army was not then under the walls, but only gathering in the distance, when the "letter" came to Hezekiah. God now assures the king that it shall not approach the city. He should be delivered, and that without even a siege.(2) "I will defend this city to save it for Mine own sake." This of course meant that, without even the secondary help of man, He would in a supernatural way defend it, and that for His own sake. Rabshakeh had defied God and put contempt upon His name, while boasting his own prowess, or that of his king. God would vindicate His name and save His city by such a demonstration of supernatural power, without the immediate agency of man, as would leave no doubt in the mind of the Assyrian as to the fact that the Lord was God indeed. Now and again God has done such things just to clear up the testimony and leave men no excuse for their opposition on the ground of ignorance. He did it with Pharaoh, who challenged His power. 2. The fulfilment. "Then the angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians, an hundred and four score and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses." This was an awful visitation. All the more so that it was done in the night and with perfect silence ( 2 Kings 19:35 ). Who can withstand His judgments? Who is strong enough to fight against God? Let the wicked wonder before they perish at the rebuke of His countenance and the breath of His mouth. 3. Sennacherib's humiliation. It must have been an awful humiliation for this proud king to take his march over the same route by which he had approached Jerusalem, not laden with the spoil of the captured city, leading thousands of the chief men and princes, and King Hezekiah himself in his triumphal captive train, but with his shattered army to be the gazing stock of the countries he had subdued, and a by-word among his own people. We must fancy that he entered Nineveh with muffled drums, or no drums at all, with trailing or furled banners. When God does rise up to humble the proud, He does it thoroughly. A further humiliation awaited him. He went after up into the house of his idol to worship, not immediately, for he appears to have lived some twenty years after this defeat. But, at any rate, instead of his god defending him, much less giving him assurance of further victories, his own sons, who should have stood by and comforted their father, conspired together and slew him. So ended the career of this proud boaster, and so began the decline of this great Assyrian power. ( G. F. Pentecost, D. D. ) Hezekiah's prayer and deliverance T. T. Holmes. It is said of Hezekiah that "he trusted in the Lord God of Israel." Let us with reference to this side of his character notice some lessons suggested by this story of his trouble and his deliverance. I. FAITH DISCOVERS GOD. The king of Judah needed such discernment to be sure that God was on his side. He must have been surprised when the Assyrian commissioner said to him, "Do not believe that Jehovah will take your part; this is my master's message to you: 'The Lord said to me, Go up against this land to destroy it.'" That was not the first time nor the last when bad men have claimed Divine authority. II. FAITH ASKS GOD FOR DELIVERANCE. The army of Judah understood very well that they were no match for the Assyrians: they were far weaker in numbers and were demoralised by a long experience of defeat and servitude. Sennacherib had taken pains to increase this impression. When this letter reached Hezekiah, he "went up unto the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord." That was his privilege — that is the right of every one who believes; it is our prerogative as God's children. He offers us help in every extremity, only requiring that we feel our need. III. FAITH INSPIRES FAITH. Hezekiah "trusted in the Lord," but not always. Like most men he found it easier to believe when he could see the way. When the Assyrian army was moving toward Jerusalem, in the early part of his reign, he was frightened: he forgot his God and so forgot himself, even sending to the invader this humiliating message: "I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear ( 2 Kings 18:14 ). And his unbelief spread. The people, who had little enough of spirit at the best, now, following their leader, gave up in despair. But there came to the king in his distress an inspiration — a friend had been raised up for his deliverance. It was the prophet Isaiah; a man who knew how to trust in the Lord at all times; when the sky was darkest he could see the stars beyond. When, after Samaria fell, leading men proposed an alliance with the Egyptian king, "No" he said "woe to them that go down to Egypt for help." "As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also He will deliver it." That faith inspired Hezekiah, giving him a reinforcement of courage which he very soon needed. He rallied and organised his forces for defence, and then went personally among the people, with the cheering exhortation, "Be strong and courageous," &c. His faith inspired faith in them. IV. FAITH OVERCOMES (vers. 33-36). What delivered Hezekiah? Not his generalship; not his army. it was "the angel of the Lord. ( T. T. Holmes. ) Sennacherib's letter It is bad to talk proudly and profanely, but it is worse to write so, for that argues more deliberation and design; and what is written spreads farther, and lasts longer, and doth the more mischief. Atheism and irreligion written will certainly be reckoned for another day. ( M. Henry . ) Hezekiah's prayer Herodotus. Professor Cheyne refers to a striking parallel in the Egyptian version of Sennacherib s overthrow. "On this the monarch (Sethos) greatly distressed, entered into the inner sanctuary, and before the image of the god (Ptah) bewailed the fate which impended over him. As he wept he fell asleep and dreamed that the god came and stood by his side, bidding him be of good cheer, and go boldly forth to meet the Arabian (Assyrian) host, which would do him no hurt, as he himself would send those who should help him." ( Herodotus. ) Prayer a way of escape I. E. Page. I know an ancient castle on a high rock, which used to be garrisoned by soldiers. From inside the castle a long, winding passage, cut out of the solid rock, and called Mortimer s Hole, leads right away under the town, and opens up at a great distance. It was the way of escape for the garrison in a case of extremity. Prayer is such a door of deliverance, and no man can shut it. ( I. E. Page. ) Prayer for help answered Sunday School Chronicle. "When," Sir Josiah Mason once said, "I have done everything I can and see no clear way, I say to myself, God help me. I have brought out all my judgment, my brain can do no more, so may it please Thee to give me a push." "And," he added, "I get the push, for as sure as I ask for help, help comes." ( Sunday School Chronicle. ) Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? Isaiah 37:23 Isaiah's saving idea of God Newman Smyth, D. D. Isaiah in his day saved Jerusalem by teaching the people a better idea of their God. For forty years he had been witnessing to a truer thought of God, and at last the crisis and the triumph of his religious statesmanship came. Jerusalem would have surrendered to Assyria had not Isaiah at last brought king and people, in their despair, to the faith in God to which for forty years he had borne witness. At an hour when the Assyrian was making his rapid march towards the city, two props of the people's confidence had entirely given way: their reliance upon Egypt, and their confidence in their religion. Isaiah had told them over and over again that these supports were rotten, and would give way when the crash came. And they did when at last came the scourge of the nations which had swept other cities before it reached Jerusalem. For a moment the luridness of the popular despair was lit up by a wild light of passion and revelry: "Let us eat and drink," they said, "for to-morrow we shall die." Then the hour for the triumph of the prophet's lifelong truth was come. He led a sobered people and a humbled king to the Holy One of Israel ( Newman Smyth, D. D. ) The Divine holiness and Fatherhood Newman Smyth, D. D. The historic truth is that wherever a better idea of God prevails men are delivered. The deep, permanent, at all times greatly needed lesson is, that the prophet's truer teaching of God is for the salvation of a city. The subject for us to inquire concerning is, whether we are being saved by any truer, stronger ideas of our God? Are we saving our society, our neighbour-hood, our city, our land by nobler knowledge of God? 1. Do you hope to work out the redemption of men by education? It is a means, a sharp instrument for good or evil, but Rabshakeh could blaspheme in two languages. We have to face the question: "What leaven is to keep the school itself from moral corruption?" 2. But much, it is said, may be accomplished through sanitary and political science. Undoubtedly. Even Ahaz did a good thing when he looked after the water supply of Jerusalem in fear of a siege, although he would not hear a word that Isaiah was saying to him by the upper pool in the fuller's field. But if Isaiah had not been the heart and the soul of the city in its critical hour, all the work that the kings had done in repairing the walls and looking after the watercourses, would never have kept the Assyrian out. Sooner or later we shall have to go down to the God on whom we depend, if we are to build anything of permanent worth. 3. What, then, is our better saving thought of God?(1) We are coming to know better the Divine Fatherhood of men.(2) Yet, this first truth of the Divine Fatherhood of men, and His special Fatherhood towards the son of His trust and love, does not exhaust our redeeming knowledge of God. Our text exalts the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah's vision of Him whose glory fills the whole earth was the vision of the Holy One. In the holiness of the prophet saw the falsehoods of the court and the people burning as with everlasting fire. And when Jesus Christ in that sublime moment to which St. John has borne witness in the seventeenth chapter of his Gospel, summed up His whole lifelong teaching in His last prayer for the disciples, He lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, Holy Father, O righteous Father.(3) There is one way in particular by which we, with all our worldliness, may be brought more fully into the saving power of these truths of God. It is through our increasing sense of God's omnipresence, of the Divine immanence, of Immanuel, God with us. ( Newman Smyth, D. D. ) God His people's defence Christian Age. A magistrate in Hamburg once held up his finger and said to Mr. Oncken, the Baptist preacher: "Do you see that finger, sir? As long as I can hold up that finger I shall put you down." "I can see," said Mr. Oncken, "what you cannot see; I can see the mighty arm of God, and as long as that arm is held up for my defence, you will never be able to put me down." ( Christian Age. ) The remnant. Isaiah 37:31, 32 The root and fruit of Christianity J. Irons. I. THE REMNANT THAT ARE SAID TO HAVE ESCAPED. Truly this is a description of the Lord s Church in every age. Strait is the gate, &c. Even so now also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." This remnan that is left is in great distress. A peculiar characteristic of this very small remnant is that they have escaped. They are apart from

37:1-38 This chapter is the same as 2Ki 19